Holding it under - Lydia&Stiles
by musician95
Summary: It was the moment I pushed him under that I realized I would be lost if he didn't come up again. (Lydia's POV)


I don't know when all of this started. What I know for sure is that I've never really noticed it before, but it feels like it has been there all along. This feeling when it comes to Stiles; this tension around my heart, this intense concern.

You would think I was an expert when it comes to feelings, considering all the experiences I've made with boys so far. I've felt love, passion, security – and I've also felt nothing while sleeping with a guy, because I was doing it for distraction.

Things have never been easy for me, no matter how it might look on the outside. But since the moment I got involved in this whole werewolf affair, my life seems to be overload with trouble. My thoughts are absorbed with problems, with images of violence and death. That's why every second I manage to forget about those things is very precious to me. And it's also the reason why I've started searching for distraction by having sex with random guys… like Aidan.

However, I really thought I was well versed in feelings. It wasn't even the panic attack that opened my eyes and showed me what I've been feeling for Stiles. Of course, I was worried; I remember quite well how my heart seemed to tighten while I watched him breathing heavily, and I remember the helplessness that overcame me back then. I didn't know what to do, so I dragged him to the basement in order to do _something_. The kiss was like a panic reaction, an intuitive order of my body that I couldn't defy.

I just felt the urgent need to help Stiles; not the way I would help any person in trouble, but in a much more desperate way, as if it was really breaking my heart to see him suffer.

Still, it didn't seem new to me. I had already figured out that I cared about Stiles. Until the kiss, I've seen him as a very close friend, a person who succeeded in creeping up on your heart, a person like Allison. But when our lips connected, there was a difference. Everything felt different, and I didn't want it to end. I didn't want our lips to part.

I don't know why I tried to deny it afterwards. The kiss meant something to me, something different from what I experienced with Jackson or Aidan or anyone else in my life. Stiles had managed to set off a completely new feeling inside of me.

Probably, it all sounded too absurd to believe it. I mean, I'm talking about Stiles – Stiles who's always been rather a loser, not a person you're fond of hanging out with. He's never been popular, or good at lacrosse, or good at anything. He's been existing, but he has never had any meaning to me. So it was already ridiculous enough that we became friends.

And then, as if to cap it all, destiny would make things even more ridiculous. We kissed.

I was totally confused, so I tried not to think about it anymore. But whenever my thoughts began to drift away, he was there. I simply didn't want to believe it. I was _afraid. _

Not afraid to spoil my reputation or anything superficial like that. Those are thoughts the old Lydia would've dealt with, the Lydia I was before I started being… well, obviously there's no other way to call it: before I started being a _psychic._

Kissing Stiles, I didn't feel like a psychic at all, though. It was just the whole situation, the fact that Stiles and I had kissed, that seemed insane to me.

So it wasn't until the evening that I was confronted with my feelings, when Deaton came up with that crazy plan using Scott, Stiles and Allison as "surrogate sacrifices" to find the place where their parents were being held prisoner.

After I'd learned about the plan, my first thought was: _N_o. It was a huge risk, and at the worst, all three would be dead. I would lose Scott, Stiles and Allison all at once. I knew I couldn't possibly bear the pain of losing them.

It turned out that I didn't have much of a say in this, after all. Deaton paired me with Stiles because of the "connection" he thought we had. I don't know if it has really been that obvious that we'd kissed earlier, or if the expression on my face has somehow betrayed more than just the kiss.

I looked at Stiles and knew immediately that Deaton was right. There was a connection. I was the only one who could bring him back to life. I had saved him once before, and I knew I could do it again.

The more complicated part was that I had to hold him under. It frightened me to watch him climb into the bin filled with ice-cold water. For a moment, I completely forgot about the other two, because there was only enough room for Stiles in my mind.

I grabbed his shoulders as tight as I could, more to steady myself than to push him under. I would've liked to hug him, to turn his head in my direction and look into his eyes and make him promise he wouldn't die. I would've liked to kiss him, more than I've wanted to kiss anyone else before.

But it would've hurt. I didn't know if I could bear seeing his eyes again, knowing that it might be the last time ever I saw them.

And that was the moment.

The moment it stroke me that he might not come back. The moment I realized that I'd be devastated if he didn't come back. The moment I finally saw the reason of everything I'd gone through, the reason for my confusion and my worry and for my fear of losing him.

I don't know if I'd call it love. I thought what I've had with Jackson was love, but that's not at all what I felt for Stiles. The feeling Stiles caused inside of me in this moment was stronger, more intense; it was as essential as breathing, as if I wouldn't be able to live without it.

What I feel for Stiles isn't just love. It isn't just a "connection", as Deaton called it that night. And it certainly isn't just a feeling.

There's no way to describe it.

I don't know when it started, neither do I know what it is.

But maybe that's the point in this whole story: Nothing is certain. I don't know anything, and still I am a hundred per cent sure this is right and this is all I've ever wanted in life.

Him.


End file.
